


Invitation to a Ghost Rave

by AisleBar



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29075259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AisleBar/pseuds/AisleBar
Summary: Journey into the underworld and have the party of your life. Or your death.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Invitation to a Ghost Rave

The invitation read: _GHOST RAVE_.

_That’s right! You are invited to a GHOST RAVE! THE RAVEST OF ALL RAVES!!!!!_

_It’s here and it’s now. It’s once-in-a-lifetime, never-seen-before, never-will-see-again. Take it or lose it forever. YOU ARE INVITED._

Outside, a storm brewed and wind battered at the walls. It was a sleepless night. It was a night for conjuration.

_

A bowl of chocolate ice cream. Six candles. Sickly sweet incense. An oriental rug. The oriental rug I’d bought from a pricey carpet shop solely for aesthetics. It didn’t do anything, but it looked nice.

I drew the shutters and swallowed six sleeping pills. I sat on the rug and leaned against the wall. I kept my eyes open. 

Bright smoke suffused the room. Lights flickered in the other world, ghosts caught up in ethereal tides and pulled towards me. The first were aimless flotsam shorn from reality, the weakest spirits from the infinite pool of the dead. Whispering shadows rose briefly before the wind whisked them away. They were little more than figments, who chased the currents single-mindedly and presaged what came after. 

After them, the greater ghosts entered through the shuttered window. They surfaced from deeper levels, a line of monstrosities in lunatic parade. Red eyes and claws sank in and out of the mists. 

The scoops of ice cream disappeared one by one.

I didn’t need ice cream. Any food would work, but ice cream was my favorite.

Most spirits departed after eating. Some stayed. I saw a ceramic mask steeped in shadow, a disembodied head with hair rippling in invisible currents, and a candle burning blue flame.

The candle was aesthetically pleasing. I picked up the candle. The other spirits disappeared.

_

Ghosts lacked names. Some barely had faces. But they were more or less like people.

"I liked your ice cream," the litwick said.

"It wasn’t my ice cream. I bought it from the store. But thank you."

"What do you want?" it asked.

"I’m going to the rave."

"What’s a rave?"

"A party. You’d like it. But I need your help to get there."

"Oh, sure. That’s easy."

The litwick dipped its head and washed the room in scathing fire. My body dissolved. A blazing light wiped away the world.

I brought the bowl of ice cream with me.

_

The other world comprised spiritual impressions, stray throughts and feelings. This close to reality, it still resembled the room we’d left, with shapes distended and features blurred. A soft rain fell sideways, heedless of gravity. 

I was a burning ball of light, holding a bowl of chocolate ice cream. I said, "Thank you."

"Happy to help," the litwick said. "Which direction are you heading?"

I remembered my invitation. "Beyond the city’s heart. At blood-dimmed tides and bright conflagarations."

"Oh! That’s not very hard. I’m great at guiding people there. I can take you farther than you’d dream."

My apartment door was a smear of color on the wall. With focus, the wall blurred and receded, and we stepped through with ease. We went outside, into the hallway.

The rain intensified into a shower. Puddles of shimmering fluid fastened to the walls. Undisturbed by the liquid, the litwick hopped gleefully, splashing around. "I like it here," it said.

"Is it the rain?"

"The rain in the other place bothers me. But this is fun. I think it’s one of my favorite areas."

"You’re cute," I said.

It beamed again. "I try to be! That way, people trust me. Then I can do whatever I want to them."

_

A mass of tendrils curled in and out of the elevator. I could barely see the doors.

Experimentally, I pushed a button. The tendrils twitched. Nothing else happened.

"Your stuff doesn’t work here," the litwick said. "We need to find another way around."

"We could take the stairs," I said. "Or we could wait for someone else, and ride the elevator with them."

"We can do that?"

"But it’s 2am. Nobody’s coming."

"Oh."

"You entered the building through the deeper levels. We’ll go that way."

I held the litwick’s hand again.

The world darkened imperceptibly, then very perceptibly. Undulating tendrils sprouted from the walls. The rain fell heavy, and droplets slammed through my nonexistent shoulders. The litwick shuddered at the pressure but raised its stubby arms joyfully, feeling the water.

The liquid was dense and deep on the walls. It rippled at my touch, and I knew we could pass through, with effort. But the ground was a conglomeration of white tendrils, hopelessly interwoven.

"You’re good at moving around," the litwick said. "Better than I expected."

"I’ve spent a lot of time in this place."

"We leave the building now, right?"

"Can you pass through the floor?"

It jumped. The floor squelched. "Not here. Do we go further?"

I had memorized this hall. Now I matched the presence of dark patches where the hall lights did not reach to holes in the floor, entrances that could be passed through. 

The shadows were more extradimensional than this extradimensional realm. They stretched unfathomable distances in the dark. They were useful shortcuts.

"Let’s go through this hole," I said. "Follow me."

I stuffed myself and my bowl of ice cream inside.

_

Stuck in the tunnel were hundreds of faces, immersed in muck. Each face bore a singular expression—they beamed beatifically or howled in soundless agony. Wayside spirits, trapped or willingly living this half-life?

Beside me, the litwick stopped to marvel at the spectacle. "I’ve never seen this before. Is this how yamask are born?"

"Maybe. There’s still a lot I don’t know." I turned to one and addressed a potential companion. "Hello."

The face blinked slowly. Blink. Blink.

It spoke after fifteen seconds. Its voice was ratchety, a turning gear grinding against stone. "You’re going to the rave."

"We’re going to the rave," I said. "Are you coming, too?"

Blink. "I am coming."

"So many people are going," the litwick said. "Wow."

Blink. Blink. "I like raves," the face said.

I waved at it. "See you later."

We traveled through the tunnel, through twelve leagues of darkness.

_

Shadows distorted time. We traveled for days in the span of seconds, and on the seventh day, an enormous cavern opened before us. We squeezed in and found ourselves without, in the city proper. As we passed from the tunnels, the walls gulped and shuddered thirstily as if satisfying themselves on a meal. I imagined myself covered in inperceptible digestive fluids. But I was untouched, and so was my bowl of ice cream.

No more rain here, just all-engulfing mist in a vast darkness. Through the pallid haze we could barely see the glow of the city’s inhabitants, each soul a fire. White-hot flames for bright individuals in good health, and guttering flames for the lost and lovelorn, slipping between the cracks of the world. Beyond their lights, mist amassed around all things, so they were barely visible.

Even at 3am, drivers streaked down the roads on late-night errands, and wayward denizens wove through a multitude of grayed-out fog buildings. I saw Nimbasa as a sea of luminous currents, the roads as conduits of light speckled by pedestarian stars. Everything else was obscure.

"We made it," the litwick said. "I didn’t know you could do that."

"The shadows are useful shortcuts."

"You know more than I expected. You know so much more than I do, and you’ve spent a lot of time here… don’t you have companions? I’ve never seen someone like you alone."

"I’m not alone. I have you."

I’d had companions in my old home, now far behind. I didn’t mention this.

"We have one goal now," I said, "which is to follow the roads. The neon lines. They will carry us deeper to our destination."

"Which is?"

"The city’s heart." _You are invited._

_

You heard it before you saw it. You felt it before you heard it.

The road we followed joined a larger road, which joined a larger road still. We streamed along an avenue that surged with electric current. Bright as a midnight sun the fairgrounds rose before us, all-encompassing. We heard tinkling fairy bells and the beat of leatherskin drums. We heard a bell from a great celestial tower, its ringing resonant.

The festivity spread up and down the layers of the underworld. The creatures above and below were distortions in reality, like pictures from foreign magazines. In the sky loomed a enormous beast with mouth gaping wide, energies swirling about it in red cloud.

Spirits flocked here like a cloud of birds in mass migration. Long-sleeping souls woke to celebrate with reckless abandon. Feast and celebration was upon us, and vivid reverie scintillated before our eyes. 

All was sound and energy. All was feast and cacophony. All turned and shifted in tumultous action.

We saw the dead, parading in pigskin leather masks dripping gold paint. They crowded onto gyro towers and pendulum rides. They laughed endlessly and danced in wild abandon, smearing ectoplasm across their indistinct bodies, waving balloon sculptures, bones and cotton candy fluff. They were triumphant pictures of heedless joy.

We saw a mega-chandelier with fifty lights swirling about it, and the litwick stuttered with awe. It asked for advice. The chandelure told it to pick its prey wisely.

I bowed to the chandelure and paid my courtesies in two scoops of ice cream, which it burned. We saw it eat fire and throw silver knives with unerring precision. After it came a twenty-limbed juggler with a golden coffin for a body, who tossed gold nuggets and crackling balls of energy. After it came flying purple dancers, and I averted my eyes, for their ensorcellment would send minds to another world.

We saw a witch hat who hawked brews and concoctions. "Fame and fortune, everlasting sorrow and despair! All is here, every wonder the tongue can taste and the mind imagine! Come one and all!" For five scoops of ice cream, I bought a bottle of black sludge.

We saw a fighting tourney in a shallow gravepit. A banette clashed with a juggernaut dusclops who clobbered it to the elated screams of spectators. I gambled two scoops of ice cream and received an amulet coin for a successful bet on the victor.

We saw a wave pool with mile-high waves rushing perpetually against the shore, spreading over burning sand where monumental sandcastles did medieval battle. We saw a fairground stall that offered your cranium for judgement from the Duskull Lord, who weighed misdeeds and granted rewards to the pure of heart. We saw buffet tables piled high with food that would make Lumiose chefs die in envy. We saw whipcrack roller coasters whirling in non-Euclidean turns. We saw cursed cartridges lost to history, available now on limited-time consoles! We saw…

_

Caught up in the festivity, we thought it might last forever. It didn’t.

The tents became scraps of canvas. The lights flickered out. The ferris wheel groaned to a stop.

One by one, the spirits faded away. Some would depart eternally, and others would rest in the deeper layers until an event of this magnitude once again piqued their interest. A select few attendees, like me, prepared to travel back to the material world.

I said to the litwick, "It’s dangerous to leave alone. Take my hand."

"It is?"

"Trust me."

My bowl of ice cream had emptied. I left it behind. Together, we went back through the layers of death. _

Going back was harder than going forward. Greedy and selfish this place was, unwilling to let go. The wind howled vilification and the rain beat at our backs. The mist sucked hungrily at us and we escaped from its grasping tendrils, pulling ourselves up through the underworld.

Into the city proper. The rain intensified into tumultous thunderstorm, so I thought I might drown. The litwick struggled. I held it and kicked upwards, a snorkler surfacing from unfriendly tides. We ascended.

_

The tunnels again. Their darkness was vastly preferable to the rain outside.

The faces stared at us from the wall.

"How was the rave?" I asked.

Blink. Blink. "Good."

We waved to them as we passed by.

_

The first layer was peaceful at the worst of times. This layer was kinder to living souls. It knew me, and its soft rain pattered gently on the walls.

I ascended further, into the material world, and the rain stopped entirely. I returned to myself.

Darkness receded, and day pressed in on us. Light glanced out between the cracks of the shuttered windows. Next to me, the litwick yawned. Ghosts were generally nocturnal, and this one was no exception. It curled into a ball and murmured tired murmurings.

"Did you have fun?" I asked.

"That rain was dangerous, I’d never seen anything like it before. What was it?"

"Our price for going. The fair is a honeypot. You have to be careful."

"Then what happened to all those other spirits?"

"The weaker ones are washed to the bottom. If they come back, it won’t be for a while."

"Oh. You saved me."

"You wouldn’t have come in the first place, if it wasn’t for me. But you’re welcome."

The invitation still laid on the countertop. I shredded it and dropped the pieces into the trash.

"If you want," I said, "you can leave."

"What if I don’t want to leave? You’re interesting."

"If you want, you could stay."

"I could?"

"You don’t have to. But if you stay, I’ll try to teach you more about the world. We could be friends. Also, I’ll give you more ice cream."

"I think I’ll stay. I like you."

I smiled at it. "Thank you. So do I."

__

We would adventure together. We would explore other worlds beyond what other mediums had accomplished. We would tame a primordial beast exiled from time and space. We would make many names for ourselves.

But these stories are left for later. My name is not yet known. For now, I recede into darkness, forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> Something small I wrote, mainly for myself.


End file.
